I’ve been watching my trans friends and acquaintances lately (it strikes me that I know FAR more trans folk than femmes, and I can’t decide if this is annoying or hilarious), and noticing something else: some of them seem to be men. Some of them seem to be trans.

Did that make sense? Every time I see my acquaintance S, I’m surprised to remember he was born female. To my knowledge, he’s entirely pre-op, but everything about him screams, “MAN.” (“Dick,” also, but that’s because I know what he did to my friend. >.>) It’s the way he moves and the way he talks… right until he says something that throws me for a loop. Usually some great excitement and he’s suddenly not-man for an instant, only I don’t think of him as feminine because it doesn’t quite seem feminine, either, I think of him as trans. (This is happening less and less over the last six months. Of course, I haven’t been talking to him much over the last six months, but… I can still hear him laugh when we’re in a group, and even that sounds more masculine.) Anyway; in my head, he’s a guy.

Then there’s the friends who are just starting their own trans process, and they have moments where they seem very masculine, and moments where they seem very… trans. Does that make sense? I think it might be insulting, and I’m extremely sorry if that’s the case. I think it’s probably one of those, “They say they are men, ergo they are men,” moments. Which I completely agree with. And at the same time, in my head their gender is transman.

But then there are the transmen who seem to glory in being transmen, and have no interest in being men. They refer to themselves as transmen and they’re in that in between gender state; neither man nor woman, but something else entirely. That’s what I think of as trans.

I don’t know. It makes my head hurt. It kinda makes my heart hurt, too, because I suspect it’s disrespectful in some way, shape, or form, even if I don’t quite understand it. But I can’t understand it if I never talk or ask about it, can I? Cripes, this is like asking people to shoot me down… BUT… talk to me, folks. Is this normal? Can trans people out there tell me what’s up in my head in regards to gender and transman vs man? Or are there more genders being created that I don’t know about? Or is it just a learning curve? Because I definitely don’t know.

On a much funnier note, Q had shoulder surgery (it’s all good now!), and we got come on her sling. *snickers* It’s a black sling. Hilariously, it says “hand wash only,” and given whoever wearing it apparently has only one working hand… I think it’s a cruel joke!

Hi, guys! A friend asked me today if I knew of any support groups for the spouses of those undergoing transgender/transexual questioning/transitioning. I don’t. Do you? Online or in person; I’m in the Bay area.

Okay, can someone tell me how to make it so that my picture goes in that little square when I comment somewhere, rather than just a random image? Here’s what I did, that I thought would work:

1. I went to “Settings”

On the right hand side there’s a picture of me, under a heading that says “Blog picture/Icon.”

I browsed for a picture, then clicked “Upload.”

It asked me to crop it. I did so. It said, “Yay! Now this picture will be used when you comment!” But I’ve since commented, and there is no picture. It’s just some abstract green and white image. 😦

If I look at the “Blog picture/icon” sidebar, it DOES have a picture of me, and it says below the picture:
“Upload a picture (jpeg or png) to be used as your blog image across WordPress.com. We will let you crop it after you upload.”

And then it has the browse, upload and delete buttons that are how I got the picture of me up. Does it just take several days to start working? That makes no sense. Did I put it in the wrong area? I admit, I’m not computer savvy. I know DK managed to get an image there (but she is computer savvy, damn her), but I can’t figure out how to make mine work. Help!